The ongoing adventures of a father who is finally finding the answers by dedicating himself to his family.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Rebound

Just
a quick note about the garden: what was seemingly headed for a major
disappointment has rebounded into a fairly lively and healthy looking
garden. It all began with such promise, as well. For the record,
mom's garden has kicked some serious butt from the get go, somehow
she just has the magic touch. It is instructive to know that she
diligently weeds, cleans, and waters her garden (unlike yours truly),
so her hard work pays off. Everything in her garden looks beautiful.

In
the spring I had this notion that I would grow tons of tomatoes and
cucumbers for the market, and it started out well. I got probably
close to 75-80 tomato plants going, and put cucumbers and zucchini
(for relish) into the ground. I started the tomatoes in the
greenhouse and let them go awhile thinking they would get really big
and hearty, and when I put them into the ground, they would take off
and crank out the fruit. This isn't how things worked out, and by the
time June was in full swing, the tomatoes were looking a little
sickly. They were so skinny, albeit tall. I planted them into the
soil thinking they would get thicker and livelier, but that didn't
happen. They just stayed skinny.

I
then remembered what a farmer friend of mine, WM via GS, told me
about tomatoes. When the stalks are tall, you can lay the stem into
the ground and bend the top up so most of the plant is underground.
The stem will sprout roots and help the tomatoes grow. It was worth a
shot, but a lot of work. I lost a couple of plants from breakage, but
with the help of the kids we modified all of the tomatoes, and sure
enough, today they are thick and bushy. They look great, and today
they have lots of fruit. It's pretty cool.

Our
zucchini also produced a few monster squash, which I will use to make
relish for the market, and it looks like there will a second round.
Even the basil, which looked like it was going to take a dive, has
come up. It's all good news, though it's a race against time against
the blight. We'll see where this goes.

Until
then, thanks for reading, and thanks to Kim Beckmann for the pic.